Photographic printers that include backprinting systems generally incorporate a drop-on-demand ink jet-type backprinting assembly that writes alphanumeric information on the backside of photographic media. While this system is inexpensive relative to a recirculating continuous ink jet system, it is best suited for continuous operations, rather than an intermittent operation of a photographic printer, to prevent the small diameter ink delivery jets of the printhead from clogging with dried ink. A drawback with a drop-on-demand ink jet backprinting system in a photographic printing environment is that the ink jet will generally clog with ink and thus, has to be manually removed from the printer to prime or clean the ink jet printhead. Further, in the environment of a photographic printer, the printer may start and/or stop at several intervals throughout the day which may lead to the clogging of the ink jet printhead during a down time of the printer. This also requires the manual cleaning of the ink jet printhead before a start up operation of the printer. A manual and/or frequent cleaning as discussed above, adds cost to the operation of the photographic printer and affects the efficiency of the printer.
Further, the manual cleaning of the ink jet printhead by actually removing the ink jet printhead from the printer also increases the likelihood of the ink spilling throughout interior of the photographic printer which thus necessitates the cleaning of the interior of the printer.